Why do I get this feeling that the cover for this one is way more awesome than the movie it depicts?

Oddly enough, I recently found myself explaining this very principle of bad movie box art to my daughter. She was going through some of my collection and asking me about the pictures. I had to explain that I had no idea what was happening on the cover of Robot Holocaust, as nothing even remotely like that happens in the movie.So then I showed her some sword and sorcery covers of the 80s that followed the same conventions. Such as...How do you even fight with those two weapons at the same time? Also note the beautiful title, apparently drawn in felt-tip pen.

You know, this reminds me of this old video review guide I had years ago from Fangoria. One of the tips they said when looking for films to rent is "Never go by box cover artwork! Some of the films aren't worth the costs of the artists pencils!" (Or something like that.)

You know, this reminds me of this old video review guide I had years ago from Fangoria. One of the tips the said when looking for films to rent is "Never go by box cover artwork! Some of the films aren't worth the costs of the artists pencils!" (Or something like that.)

Yeah, I wrote up a guide years ago for how to determine the odds that a movie is bad based on the box. I have to say though, with the advent of DVD and photoshop, a lot of the rules I determined are not as true.

Wish I still had the whole thing, but a few bits I remember that most on this forum will understand:

If the box is bigger than normal, that is a HUGE indicator of crapiness.If the back of the box has NO PICTURES from the film, it is probably garbage.If there are quotes like, "The goriest horror film ever!" with no one attributed to the quote, it's almost certainly crap (that one is basically exclusive to direct-to-DVD releases).If there is a drawn cover art image which is matted like the box was a picture frame, it's probably crap (Ratboy, as seen below, does this). If there's an ultra-cool Boris Vallejo/Frazetta style painting on the cover, and it's obviously a low budget film, it is probably crap.If it has famous people in it in the era before they were famous, it's probably crap - especially if it is a film that was long out of print until they got famous.If you can determine the cover art doesn't match the plot description at all, it is probably crap.If the cover art font looks like the font from a more famous similar movie, it IS crap.If there's a hologram on the cover, it probably sucks. Ditto with 3D art that sticks out of the box, lights, sounds, and other box gimmicks.If there is obvious photoshopping on a live action photo on the cover, it probably sucks.If the title bears a striking resemblance to a big budget film's title, it probably sucks.

There's a few examples. They're not ALL bad (a few typical polished Hollywood films got these boxes in the early VHS days, I think), but most of them are. It should be noted I'm not referring to any specific kind (one company's boxes are actually called Big Box VHS, IIRC), but any non-standard VHS boxes that are physically large.

The worst examples were the ones that actually were a sleeve, just with a box made way larger and styrofoam inserts to hold the VHS.